Company on Christmas
by Revhead
Summary: It is Dean's first Christmas since he got out of Hell and Sam is nowhere to be found. What is Christmas without family? Set in season 4. A Dean/Cas friendship fic (or pre-slash, whichever you prefer).


**Company on Christmas**

Over his lifetime, Dean Winchester had experienced some fairly dismal Christmases.

The first one after his mother had died was spent clutched tightly in his dad's arms as he drank and wept and drank some more until unconsciousness claimed him.

When Dean was 11, his dad didn't make it home from a hunt in time for Christmas. Not only had this led to Sam's discovery that monsters were real and had killed their mom, but Dean had been forced to improvise presents for Sammy and face his brother's disappointment when he saw through the façade.

The Christmas of his sixteenth year, Dean had hunted and killed a werewolf younger than he was.

Sam's sixteenth hadn't been much better – he asked Dad if he could spend Christmas with his girlfriend's family which had led to a massive argument, Sam trying to sneak out, Dad trying to force him to stay and Dean throwing himself into the middle as they almost came to blows. That Christmas had been spent in stone cold silence as Sam and Dad glared at each other over their cups of untouched eggnog.

After Sam left for Stanford, Dean had driven all the way to Silicon Valley to visit him during the holiday but had ended up watching Sam celebrate with his new friends though a window, knowing he was unwelcome.

Oddly enough, last Christmas had been one of the best. In amongst hunting pagan gods and nearly becoming part of a ritual sacrifice, Sam and Dean had managed to celebrate with a sparsely decorated motel room, home-made eggnog, service station gifts and watching the game on a crappy motel television. It was supposed to be Dean's last Christmas and he had spent it with his brother; he couldn't have asked for anything more.

Somehow, December 25th had come around again and Dean was here to witness it. He should have been rotting in Hell, but by a miracle he was topside, living and breathing and (almost) whole. More than ever, this should have been a time for celebration, or at the very least an opportunity for the two brothers to spend time together after being brutally separated for four months (give or take 40 years).

But Dean had woken to an empty hotel room. Sam was gone. He was probably off somewhere with Ruby, doing god knows what, crossing all sorts of lines and earning the wrath of Heaven in the process. The lying and sneaking around bothered Dean more than he let on. But Sam missing Christmas, and not just any Christmas but Dean's first Christmas back from damnation… that hurt.

This day was swiftly earning a place in Dean's list of Worst Christmases Ever. Drinking couldn't fill the emptiness inside him and picking up some random chick at a bar for a one night stand wouldn't ease the crushing loneliness.

Christmas was supposed to be about family. Without Sam there, all Dean could think about was the people he had lost.

He remembered his mother helping him to decorate a huge, real tree in their living room and the way she had lifted him into her arms so he could place the angel ornament on the top. But the memory of her smile was overshadowed by the image of her body bursting into flame and Dean's heart ached with loss.

Dad had taken them camping for Christmas one year and they had made s'mores in the fire. When Dean tried to focus on the happy memories, though, all he could picture was the scene at the hospital where the doctor had pronounced his father dead.

His parents had been taken from him and many of the people who had become like family were gone now, too. Most of the time Dean felt like he had already lost Sam as well, even when his brother was standing right next to him.

What Dean feared most was being left all alone, abandoned by everyone who had ever meant anything to him, and here he was spending Christmas by himself. He hated it.

"Is a little bit of company on Christmas Day really too much to ask?" Dean questioned the empty room, feeling sorry for himself and not caring if talking to no one was a sign of insanity.

He wasn't expecting a response but he was remarkably unsurprised when an angel appeared out of nowhere.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said.

"Let me guess. Somewhere out there a seal is breaking and your band of feathered friends are too busy to deal with it so you want to send your errand boy instead. Well, it is Christmas day and I'd love to tell ya I've got better things to do, but I don't. So go ahead, beam me up Scotty."

Castiel tilted his head slightly. "My name is not 'Scotty'."

Dean repressed a sigh. Angels had been around for millennia, and they couldn't find all of five minutes to watch a bit of TV? "Never mind. You're here, I'm ready, let's go."

"There are no seals currently at risk."

Damn. Dean needed some action to get his brain out of this funk and fighting some demons over a seal would have done the trick. "Then why are you here?"

Cas stood there silently for a long moment. "I am sorry to intrude." He took half a step back, on the verge of disappearing as suddenly as he had arrived.

"No, wait, it's – it's fine. You don't have to go, unless, you know, ah, you do have to. Go. But don't, if you want to. Stay, I mean. Ahh…" Dean scraped his fingers through his hair, flustered and embarrassed without knowing why.

Castiel, on the other hand, was as stoic as ever. "I can remain for a time."

"Okay, then. Well, pull up a chair," Dean offered.

Castiel blinked and a chair slid over from the window. He lowered himself onto it stiffly.

"Dude, relax," Dean said. He snagged a beer from the cooler box next to him and passed it to the angel. "This isn't a job interview; just a couple of-" friends? Acquaintances? Fellow soldiers? Dean didn't know how to describe them. "-dudes hanging out on Christmas day."

Cas lowered his shoulders slightly and curled his hand around the offered bottle. He didn't make a move to drink it.

"Oh, do you need me to pop the lid for you?"

Cas looked down at the beer and the lid popped off on its own, clinking as it hit the floor.

Dean swallowed. Was he really doing this right now; trying to casually socialise with an Angel of the Lord? This was not how their interactions usually went – Castiel would turn up with advice or a warning or instructions and then he would go, vanishing off to wherever angels went when they weren't bossing around their pet humans. Heaven, probably. This was so far beyond Dean's scope of experience.

"It would seem that you also need to 'relax'," Castiel said. He took a measured sip of his beer, almost as though he was trying to set Dean at ease.

Dean puffed out a small breath of air and deliberately slouched more comfortably in his seat. Fake it til you make it, right?

"So Cas, I would have thought Christmas was a big deal up in Heaven. How come you and the other angels aren't partying?"

"Aside from the fact that we are in the middle of a war and do not have time for such dalliances, the anniversary of the birth of Christ does not coincide with human celebrations. He was actually born-"

"Sometime in the Fall, right?"

"Yes."

"Sammy told me that." Had it only been a year ago? It felt like a lifetime. Sometimes it was a struggle to remember events clearly from before Hell, like his memories had been tortured along with the rest of him. At one point he had barely been able to recall his own name, though Sammy's echoed in his head constantly – first as a reason to keep fighting and then as a shameful reminder that he had given up and he was letting Sammy down. Dean had to assume Castiel had rebuilt his memories as well as his body when he patched him up after dragging him out of Hell because they were all back, aged and dusty but retrievable with a little effort.

"…Dean?"

"Hm?" Dean shook himself out of the reverie. "I'm, sorry, what?"

"Where is your brother?"

Dean shrugged.

"Out with the demon Ruby," Castiel guessed. When Dean didn't deny it he frowned. "I thought I told you to stop these extracurricular activities."

"Yeah, well, Sam doesn't listen to me anymore. When I died I left him all alone. Ruby was there for him when I wasn't and she got inside his head. He trusts her more now. Not much I can do about it."

"Dean-"

"Can we not talk about this? Christmas bums me out enough as it is."

Castiel fell silent.

Dean gulped down half of his beer before the quiet got to him. "Family," he said. "I don't know, man. It is supposed to be this great and wonderful thing, all hugs and happiness and getting along swell, but that's a load of crap. As far as I'm concerned family is pain and secrets and fighting and loss."

"Not always."

"Yeah, well lately the good times feel few and far between. Seems like no matter how hard I try, it just keeps falling apart." Dean had been trying to keep his family together his whole life – first when Mom and Dad were fighting and Dad didn't come home for a few days, then when Dad was so busy hunting that Dean had to step up to look after both him and Sam, then when Dad and Sam started fighting over everything, then when Dad found Sam's acceptance letter from Stanford, then when Dad had gone missing, then when Dad died…he had failed more often than he had succeeded and now every day he felt one step closer to losing was left of his family.

"I know how you feel," Castiel said quietly.

Dean looked up, surprised that the angel could empathise with his situation.

"You do not have a monopoly on dysfunctional families, Dean. You should have seen Heaven on the day Lucifer was cast out. I have never witnessed a battle so ferocious and the worst part was that no one wanted to be fighting at all. Despite everything, we were a family. Michael was furious that Lucifer had betrayed us but he cried when the Cage was sealed. Our Father was broken-hearted and never recovered from the loss of his beloved son. Gabriel couldn't cope with all the fighting and left. Raphael became cold and bitter, distant from everyone. They were the bedrock of our family and it all just fell apart. As a younger brother I was helpless to do anything. And now the fighting has begun anew. My brothers and sisters are dying. Decisions are being made that I don't always agree with and ultimately everything we do is designed to break our family all the more. There is no forgiveness, no efforts for peace, no fixing this. It can only end bloody."

Dean was not sure what to say to that. God and angels and the Devil seemed so far from human that it was hard to imagine that they were actually one big cosmic family, just with planet-sized issues. "I guess both of our families are a bit of a mess, huh?"

Cas took another swallow of his beer. "I guess so."

Dean sighed. "Feels kind of lonely, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does."

This Christmas had gone from dismal to downright depressing, so Dean tried to find a way to lighten the mood. "But hey, at least we've got each other, right? We can start our own little family. You and me, and Sammy when he gets his head on straight. We'll do it right – stick by each other, look out for each other, work through our issues rather than letting them come between us. Hell, maybe if we're lucky we will find a way to be happy."

"I would like that."

Dean smiled a little. "Here's to us, then." He held out his bottle. After a moment spent staring blankly at the outstretched beverage, Cas caught on and chinked their beers together. "Merry Christmas, Cas."

"Merry Christmas, Dean."


End file.
